Canberra: US President Donald Trump has confirmed his administration will honour a refugee resettlement deal with Australia, Treasurer Scott Morrison said on Monday.
Trump spoke by telephone with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Sunday, officials in both countries said, one of a number of conversations the new US president held with world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Morrison told Sydney radio station 2GB that the government had “been able to secure the continuance of this arrangement under President Trump”.
Former US President Barack Obama’s administration had said the United States would take a substantial number of the 1,200 asylum seekers held in Australia’s processing centres on remote Pacific islands in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, after Turnbull agreed to resettle refugees from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
US Homeland Security officials have begun assessing the asylum seekers, although it was unclear when those found to be genuine refugees would be resettled.
Many of those in Australia’s offshore camps have fled conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement she’s instructed the embassy in Washington to work with US officials to ensure “any preferential treatment extended to any other country in relation to travel and entry to the United States is extended to Australia.”
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Bill English said discriminating against refugees and migrants was “not the New Zealand way,” Fairfax Media reported on Monday on its website. ‘’I think it’s important that any refugees or migrants who come to New Zealand are welcome, and it doesn’t matter where they come from — even if they come from a troubled country they’re welcome here,” he was quoted as saying.
Australia, which counts the US as its most important strategic ally, has avoided criticising Trump, however.
Turnbull told reporters on Monday it wasn’t his job “to run a commentary on the domestic policies of other countries.”
“It is vital that every nation is able to control who comes across its borders,” Turnbull said.
He added Trump had pledged to uphold an agreement reached with the Obama administration, whereby asylum seekers held in Pacific island camps could be resettled in the US.
Britain’s Foreign Office said it had been assured the immigration ban didn’t apply to UK nationals travelling from the seven countries, even if they had been born there. Canada said it had been told its citizens and permanent residents would be allowed to travel to the US.
Like the US, Australia is a nation built on migration and has many citizens who are also nationals of the listed countries. Among them is Iranian-born Sam Dastyari, a lawmaker in the upper house Senate for the main opposition Labor party. He told the Age newspaper on Monday that members of the Iranian-Australian community were shocked and saddened by Trump’s decision.
Australia’s hardline immigration policy is a contentious issue that has drawn international condemnation from the United Nations and other rights groups, but which remains popular at home and has bipartisan political support.
Once fringe, far-right political parties like Pauline Hanson’s One Nation have gained wider backing, which sometimes spills over into calls for a ban on Muslim immigration.
Up to 150 far-right protesters rallied in the Australian city of Sydney on Sunday, waving placards in support of Trump and demanding a ban on Muslim immigration in Australia.
Some carried banners saying “Aussies for Trump” and “ISIS refugees not welcome” amid a heavy police presence.
“I say this to Islamists: Australia will never be your country,” John Bolton, a speaker at the rally, told Reuters.
Australia, a staunch US ally, has been on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown Islamist radicals since 2014 and authorities say they have thwarted a number of plots.
— Agencies
